Disturbing X-Ray arm drifting

Today I was at Professional Drive Dental doing routine service work, when one of the hygienists mentioned to me that she was having trouble with her X-ray arm drifting.

Upon inspection of the X-ray, we found that the swing arm had cracked. After inspection of the unit, the doctors and I both agreed that the arm needed to be secured and the machine disabled until a replacement arm could be ordered and installed. Nobody ever wants the liability of a heavy tubehead crashing down on a patient’s face.

We also decided it would be prudent to investigate the remaining X-ray units in the office. Low and behold there was a second arm that was also cracked but not nearly as bad as the first. We went ahead and ordered and installed an arm for that unit as well.

Not knowing if this was a fluke or something of a problem that everyone could possibly have, the doctors suggested that I recommend that other offices have their X-ray arms checked. So, if you have us in your office on a normal service call, we will happily inspect your X-ray arms for any problems.

The biggest point that I have in all of this is that I want staff to be observant of the equipment and how it is supposed to function so that they can let me know when something just isn’t right. This was a good catch by the Professional Drive dental staff!

Below are pictures detailing where to check for problems:

We noticed that the horizontal arm was not horizontal.

You remove this plastic cover to look inside.

The crack on this arm was quite evident.